Dictionary

frontsie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From front + -sie.

Meanings

1. (childish, plural-normally) The act of joining a queue in front of a friend rather than at the end of the queue.
   • To her, the ethical thicket consists of "frontsies and backsies," a phenomenon she noticed in kindergarten. 1988, William L. Rivers, Cleve Mathews, Ethics for the media, page 45:
   • Backsies meant you let a kid cut behind you. A complex moral microcosm presented itself in the world of frontsies and backsies, with a wide range of available moral responses. 2019, Robert K. Bolger, Robert C. Coburn, Religious Language, Meaning, and Use: The God Who is Not There:
   • He then suggests a lawyerly solution to her problem: just ask your friend to grant you a frontsie first, so that you can enter the queue in front of her, but promise that you will then grant her a frontsie in turn, by trading places with her, so that when all is said and done, you will have taken the queue spot right behind her but without violating the rule againsts backsies; you did it all by a seuqnce of frontsies. 2011, Leo Katz, Why the Law Is So Perverse, page 71:
   • One of his favorites is "No frontsies, no backsies," so there was really no point in trying to butt in. 2003, Ann M. Martin, The Baby-sitter's Club, page 200:

Forms